Net Neutrality

At its core, net neutrality determines whether Internet Service Providers (the companies that own the cables all internet traffic runs on) can charge more for certain kinds of traffic or not. For example, AT&T or Comcast might charge Netflix (or its consumers) more for Netflix traffic than they charge Wikimedia (or its consumers) for Wikipedia traffic —a site streaming video requires more bandwidth than a text-based site.

ISPs want to charge different rates for different types of content. This would allow them more profits that they might choose to invest in infrastructure improvements. The technology sector depends on predictably inexpensive internet traffic in order to innovate and disrupt. And the technology sector would argue that if the ISPs can determine price, then they could have blocked a service Netflix in the very beginning and hence never had to face the competition from Netflix.

From perspective of a society what should concern all of us is what we value. On one hand you could, as the technology sector would encourage you to, look at internet as infrastructure such as roads, electricity, and water, and hence consider AT&T, Comcast, and others as semi-public goods that should be open to all to innovate on. On the other hand, the ISPs would ask you to consider that they are indeed private companies and not public sector and should be able to make money on their investments and only if they can charge differently are they incentivized to expand their services. See more about the history of net neutrality here. (Whitehouse.gov)

The Federal Communications Commission announced on Tuesday that it planned to dismantle landmark regulations that ensure equal access to the internet, clearing the way for companies to charge more and block access to some websites.nytimes.com(See also Assaults on Civil Liberties, Censorship)

2017.11.23

NY Attorney General Schneiderman estimated that hundreds of thousands of Americans’ identities were stolen and used in spam campaigns that support repealing net neutrality, while a new analysis reveals that at least 1.3 million comments supporting the new FCC position on net neutrality were fake.hackernoon.com(See also Legal Issues, Assaults on Civil Liberties, Unprecedented Actions)

The Federal Communications Commission voted to dismantle Net Neutrality: landmark rules regulating the businesses that connect consumers to the internet, scrapping regulations that prohibited broadband providers from blocking websites or charging for high-quality service or content, reversing the agency's 2015 decision.nytimes.com(See also Assaults on Civil Liberties, Domestic Policy, Reversals)

2018.01.22

Through an executive order, Montana Governor Steve Bullock declared that any internet service provider with a state government contract cannot block or charge more for faster delivery of websites, two core aspects of net neutrality, to any customer in the state.nytimes.com(See also Reversals)